Editing Captain America (section)

==Characterization==
===Fictional character biography===
{{see also|List of Captain America titles}}

{{Side box
 |above = '''Notable Captain America storylines'''
 |below={{bulleted list|"[[The Strange Death of Captain America]]" (1969)|"[[Secret Empire (1974 comic)|Secret Empire]]" (1974)|"[[Captain America: The Captain|The Captain]]" (1987–1989)|"[[The Winter Soldier (story arc)|The Winter Soldier]]" (2005–2006)|"[[Civil War (comics)|Civil War]]" (2006–2007)|"[[The Death of Captain America]]" (2007–2008)|"[[Secret Empire (2017 comic)|Secret Empire]]" (2017)}}
}}

{{As of|2015}}, Captain America has appeared in more than ten thousand stories in more than five thousand media formats, including comic books, books, and trade publications.{{Sfn|Stevens|2015|p=2}} The character's [[origin story]] has been retold and revised multiple times throughout his editorial history, though its broad details have remained generally consistent.{{sfn|Weiner|2013|p=101}} Steven "Steve" Rogers was born in the 1920s to an impoverished family on the [[Lower East Side]] of [[New York City]]. The frail and infirm Rogers attempts to join the [[U.S. Army]] in order to fight in the [[Second World War]], but is rejected after being deemed unfit for military service.{{sfn|Hack|2009|p=80}} His resolve is nevertheless noticed by the military, and he is recruited as the first test subject for "Project Rebirth", a secret government program that seeks to create [[super soldiers]] through the development of the "Super-Soldier Serum". Though the serum successfully enhances Rogers to the peak to human physical perfection, a Nazi spy posing as a military observer destroys the remaining supply of the serum and assassinates [[Abraham Erskine|its inventor]], foiling plans to produce additional super soldiers. Rogers is given a patriotic uniform and [[Captain America's shield|shield]] by the American government and becomes the costumed superhero Captain America. He goes on to fight the villainous [[Red Skull]] and other members of the [[Axis powers]] both domestically and abroad, alongside his sidekick [[Bucky Barnes]] and as a member of the [[Invaders (comics)|Invaders]]. In the final days of the war, Rogers and Barnes seemingly perish after falling from an experimental [[unmanned aerial vehicle|drone plane]] into the northern [[Atlantic Ocean]].<ref name="FredEntertainment"/>

Rogers is found decades later by the superhero team the [[Avengers (comics)|Avengers]], the Super-Soldier Serum having allowed him to survive frozen in a block of ice in a state of [[suspended animation]].<ref name="FredEntertainment"/> Reawakened in modern times, Rogers resumes activities as a costumed hero, joining and later becoming leader of the Avengers.{{sfn|Weiner|2013|p=104}} Many of his exploits involve missions undertaken for the Avengers or for [[S.H.I.E.L.D.]], an espionage and international law enforcement agency operated by his former war comrade [[Nick Fury]]. Through Fury, Rogers befriends [[Sharon Carter]], a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with whom he eventually begins a partnership and an on-again off-again romance. He meets and trains [[Falcon (comics)|Sam Wilson]], who becomes the superhero Falcon, and they establish an enduring friendship and partnership.{{sfn|Weiner|2013|p=105}} After [[Secret Empire (1974 comic)|a conspiracy]] hatched by the [[Secret Empire (organization)|Secret Empire]] to discredit Rogers is revealed to have been personally orchestrated by the President of the United States, a disillusioned Rogers abandons the mantle of Captain America and assumes the title of "[[Nomad (Marvel Comics)|Nomad]]", the "man without a country".{{sfn|Weiner|2013|p=106}} He eventually re-assumes the title, and later declines an offer from the "New Populist Party" to run for president himself.{{sfn|Weiner|2013|p=106}} He again abandons the mantle of Captain America to briefly assume the alias of "[[Captain America: The Captain|The Captain]]" when a [[Commission on Superhuman Activities|government commission]] orders him to work directly for the U.S. government.{{sfn|Rizzo|Licari|2021|p=106}}

In the aftermath of the [[September 11 attacks]], Rogers reveals his secret identity to the world.{{sfn|Weiner|2013|p=106}} Following the [[Avengers Disassembled|disbandment of the Avengers]], he discovers that [[The Winter Soldier (story arc)|Bucky is still alive]], having been brainwashed by the Soviets to become the Winter Soldier.{{sfn|Dowsett|2008|p=325}} Later, in reaction to [[Civil War (comics)|government efforts to regulate superheroes]], Rogers becomes the leader of an underground anti-registration movement that clashes with a pro-registration faction led by fellow Avengers member [[Iron Man]].{{sfn|Dowsett|2008|p=332}} After significant rancor, he voluntarily surrenders and submits to arrest. At his trial, he is [[The Death of Captain America|shot and killed]] by Sharon Carter, whose actions are manipulated by the villainous [[Doctor Faustus (comics)|Dr. Faustus]]; in his absence, a recovered Bucky assumes the title of Captain America.{{sfn|Rizzo|Licari|2021|p=152}} It is eventually revealed that [[Captain America: Reborn|Rogers did not die]], but became displaced in space and time; he is ultimately able to return to the present.{{sfn|Rizzo|Licari|2021|pp=166–167}} He resumes his exploits as a superhero, though his public identity is briefly [[Secret Empire (organization)|supplanted by a sleeper agent]] from the terrorist organization [[Hydra (comics)|Hydra]].{{sfn|Rizzo|Licari|2021|p=190}}

===Personality and motivations===
{{Quote box
 |quote  = "Rogers' transformation into Captain America is underwritten by the military. But, perhaps haunted by his own roots in powerlessness, he is a dissident just as likely to be feuding with his superiors in civilian and military governance as he is to be fighting with the supervillain Red Skull. [...] He is 'a man out of time,' a walking emblem of [[Greatest Generation|greatest-generation]] propaganda brought to life in this splintered postmodern time."
 |author = – [[Ta-Nehisi Coates]]<ref name="CoatesAtlantic"/>
 |width  = 30%
 |align  = right
 |border   = none
}}

Steve Rogers' personality has shifted across his editorial history, a fact that media scholar J. Richard Stevens sees as a natural consequence of the character being written and re-interpreted by many writers over the span of multiple decades. However, Stevens identifies two aspects of the character's personality that have remained consistent across expressions: his "uncompromising purity" and "his ability to judge the character in others".{{Sfn|Stevens|2015|p=277}} Early Captain America stories typically paid little attention to Rogers' civilian identity; in his 1970 book ''[[The Steranko History of Comics]]'', Jim Steranko notes that the character was often criticized for being two-dimensional as a result. He argues that this was an intentional device, writing that these critics "failed to grasp the true implication of his being. Steve Rogers never existed, except perhaps as an abstract device for the convenience of storytelling. Captain America was not an embodiment of human characteristics but a pure idea."{{sfn|Steranko|1970|p=51}}

Following the character's return to comics in the 1960s, many stories gave increased focus to Rogers' civilian identity, particularly his struggles as a "man out of time" attempting to adjust to the modern era.{{sfn|Stevens|2015|p=89}} Often, stories depict a brooding or melancholic Rogers as he faces both a physical struggle as Captain America, and an ideological struggle as Steve Rogers to reconcile his social values with modern times.{{sfn|Stevens|2015|p=91}} The character is frequently conflicted by  his World War II-era "good war" morality being challenged and made anachronistic by the compromising demands of the post-war era.{{sfn|Stevens|2015|p=91}}{{sfn|Dittmer|2012|p=100}}

Prior to Bucky Barnes' return to comics in the 2000s, many Captain America stories centered on Rogers' sense of guilt over Barnes' death. Culture scholar Robert G. Weiner argues that these stories mirror the [[post-traumatic stress disorder]] and [[survivor guilt]] held by many war veterans, and that this trauma distinguishes the character from other well-known superheroes such as [[Batman]] and [[Spider-Man]]: while those characters became heroes because of a traumatic incident, Rogers carries on as a hero in spite of a traumatic incident, with Weiner asserting that this reinforces the nobility of the character.{{sfn|Weiner|2009|p=100}}

===Political themes===
Though Marvel has historically trended away from making overt partisan statements in the post-war period, writers have nevertheless used Captain America to comment on the state of American society and government at particular moments in history.{{sfn|Weiner|2013|p=105}} For example, the conspiracy storyline of "Secret Empire" reflected what writer Steve Englehart saw as broad disillusionment with American institutions in the wake of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal,{{sfn|Weiner|2013|p=106}} the "Streets of Poison" storyline by Mark Gruenwald in the 1990s was intended to address anxieties around the [[Illegal drug trade in the United States|drug trade]] and debates on the [[war on drugs]],{{sfn|Weiner|2013|p=106}} and "Civil War" by Mark Millar was widely interpreted as an allegory for the [[Patriot Act]] and post-9/11 debates on the balance between national security and civil liberties.{{sfn|Dittmer|2012|p=12}} While the ideological orientation of Captain America stories has shifted in response to changing social and political attitudes, Stevens notes how a central component of Captain America's mythology is that the character himself does not change: when the character's attitudes have shifted, it is consistently framed as an evolution or a new understanding of his previously held ideals. Stevens argues that the character's seeming paradoxical steadfastness is reflective of "the language of comics, where continuity is continually updated to fit the needs of the serialized present."{{Sfn|Stevens|2015|pp=3–4}}

Despite his status as patriotic superhero, Captain America is rarely depicted as an overtly [[jingoistic]] figure. Stevens writes that the character's "patriotism is more focused on the universal rights of man as expressed through the [[American Dream]]" rather than "a position championing the specific cultural or political goals of the United States."{{Sfn|Stevens|2015|p=280}} Weiner similarly concurs that the character "embodies what America strives to be, not what it sometimes is".{{sfn|Weiner|2013|p=111}} Dittmer agrees that while the character sees himself "as the living embodiment of the American Dream (rather than a tool of the state)",{{sfn|Dittmer|2012|p=7}} his status as a patriotic superhero nevertheless tethers him to American foreign policy and hegemony.{{sfn|Dittmer|2012|p=8}} He argues that Captain America tends to skew away from interventionist actions at moments where the United States is undertaking policies that its critics deem imperialist, specifically citing the character's non-participation in the Vietnam and Iraq wars,{{sfn|Dittmer|2012|p=135}} and argues that the character's inconsistent position on the use of deadly force across his editorial history "is perhaps a tacit acknowledgment of the violence, or the threat of violence, at the heart of American hegemony."{{sfn|Dittmer|2012|p=140}}